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Dear Mister Obama

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Uriel Bollag
Uriel Bollag is an uncategorized Jew, who was born and raised in Switzerland and now lives in sunny Tel Aviv.
… [More]He is an unconditional adherent of constructive critical thinking and believes the world is a dynamic place in which there is no room for stagnancy. [Less]

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First and foremost I wish to express my sympathy for you. Since you have been re-elected you’re running into nothing but people who are trying to discredit you and your policies, who are trying to stain your image and who want to blame you for everything that goes wrong in the United States of America. You have the republicans who will stop at nothing to put your back against a wall, media outlets that are spreading vicious rumors about your incapabilities and now you’re even getting phone calls from outraged government officials that were not pleased when they learned that they can’t wish their spouses good night over the phone without you listening in.

But you don’t deserve it. You mean well. You are trying to steer your nation out of a crisis, lend support to the middle class and establish equal rights for all. You don’t want to see your people being rejected at hospital counters because they cannot afford to pay for insurance and you wish for Americans to be safe anywhere they travel across the globe. It is a noble mission you have taken upon yourself. However, your opponents are ruthless. The temptation for money and power can defeat anyone’s instinct for what is right and wrong and this irrational urge blinds them. Instead of support you gain mockery.

And now the whole world bedevils you. After the latest round of classified disclosures that revealed how far the NSA has gone in order to protect state security, your own allies are slowly turning against you. Angela Merkel and François Hollande feel betrayed, Dilma Rousseff canceled her scheduled visit to Washington and everyone blames you for it even though this all started way before you were a household name.

It started on September 11th 2001 to be exact. The day that will be engraved forever in every American heart. The day that the United States endured a malicious attack on its own territory, carried out by cowardly excuses of human beings. Everything changed that day and American officials promised that such a calamity would never happen again. And behind closed doors they vowed that nothing could stop them from preventing such a disaster from happening again. We are all aware of the meaning of collateral damage and we are all aware how unaware we are of how much collateral damage is taking place on a daily basis in order to keep that promise.

For this I want to thank you. I want to thank you for not only protecting your own people from terrorists, but even your allied nations, as you said in one of your speeches. And that’s true selflessness. To put your own credibility on the line in order to safeguard billions of people, many of whom despised and will continue to despise you for no real reason, proves how good and pure your intentions are.

But dear Mister Obama,

there is one minor detail that keeps me up at night. That just won’t make sense to me and my strangely wired brain. You see, I am writing this as a resident of one of your allied nations. One that you have countlessly pledged your allegiance to. Israel. And I think Israel is the one ally that understands your interest more than any other country. Not because we have a 9/11 of our own, no. Because we have hundreds of them. We experienced and continue to experience hundreds of malicious attacks on our own territory. We have hundreds of days that changed everything for thousands of our citizens. And we have hundreds of times that we said “never again!”. And just as your horrific experience was carried out by cowardly terrorists that want nothing more than the blood of good, innocent people on their hands, so were our hundreds of horrific experiences carried out by cowardly terrorists that want nothing more than the blood of good, innocent people on their hands. So when you stand on your podium and you explain why the end justifies the means, we are the ones that are nodding our heads. If the government hacking into our personal files and phones would stop terrorism on our territory we would sign up on the spot. Every single one of us.

But if anything justifies the means of finding terrorists, doesn’t anything justify the means of keeping proven, self-proclaimed terrorists where they belong? Don’t terrorists that have already killed and ruined hundreds of lives belong behind bars? I think you would agree.

Then why, Mr. Obama, are you making us release those terrorists? Why are you making us send them home to freedom, where they are celebrated as war heroes by their people? By their statesman! Why are you defending your government’s radical breach of privacy of millions of people in order to find terrorists, when at the same time you are the one releasing hundreds of terrorists from Israeli prisons? I understand that in politics not everything is as simple as it might be perceived, but at this moment in time you can’t afford to be incoherent. Terrorists don’t differentiate between Americans or Israelis. So why do you, Mr. Obama?

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